Post a Comment On: CPA at Law

Individuals with substantial assets can utilize a number of techniques to minimize gift and estate taxes. These techniques include making lifetime transfers of assets using irrevocable trusts. This post will describe some of the irrevocable trust planning techniques for income-producing assets. Such trusts will name an "income beneficiary," who will be entitled to the income generated by the asset and a "remainder beneficiary," who will be entitled to the asset itself after a defined period of time.

One way to classify such trusts is by how the income of the income beneficiary is calculated: In general, income is calculated as either a fixed amount (an annuity) or as a fixed percentage of the net fair market value of the trust assets (a unitrust amount). Another way to classify these trusts is whether they involve a charitable beneficiary. Finally, with respect to charitable trusts, the charitable beneficiary can be either the income or the remainder beneficiary. These different trusts can be described using the following chart:

 Annuity Income   Unitrust Income   Charitable Lead Trusts (CLTs)   Charitable Lead Annuity Trust (CLAT)   Charitable Lead Unitrust (CLUT)   Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRTs)   Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust (CRAT)   Charitable Remainder Unitrust (CRUT)   Grantor Retained Trusts (GRTs)   Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT)   Grantor Retained Unitrust (GRUT) 
In summary, a CLAT and a CLUT both provide a charity with income for a period of time, in the form of an annuity or unitrust amount respectively, with non-charitable beneficiaries receiving the remainder interest when the income period ends. A CRAT and a CRUT are similar, except that the charitable beneficiary receives the remainder interest at the end of the income period, during which either an annuity or unitrust amount is paid to non-charitable beneficiaries. Finally, a GRAT and a GRUT provide for both an income interest and a remainder interest to non-charitable beneficiaries. Future posts will discuss the situations in which each of these trusts are typically used.